THE former Midland recruiting chief of radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir has revealed how he recruited hundreds of Midland students – including six who went on to fight for the Taliban.

The 29-year-old says he signed up Muslims attending Aston University, University of Birmingham and the University of Central England.

He also claimed half a dozen Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) recruits went to fight as Taliban soldiers against UK troops in Afghanistan, warning that others could still join terror groups.

Earlier this year, the Sunday Mercury reported that British troops had discovered an Aston Villa tattoo on the body of a dead Taliban fighter in the battlefields of Hellmand province.

UK soldiers also said they heard Brummie accents amongst the enemy, adding to fears that brainwashed Birmingham Muslims are fighting against our boys.

And in an exclusive interview the former HuT recruitment chief, who now opposes the extremist party, said his former recruits had become Jihadists.

“I remember one group of members from Birmingham, including two brothers from Perry Barr, who went to fight in Afghanistan,’’ he recalled.

“They were recruited by HuT and given their extremist ideology.

‘‘They believed it was their religious duty to fight against British soldiers invading Muslim lands. No one could stop them, they wanted to take part in Jihad.’’

He added: “People radicalised by HuT go on to join Jihadi organisations, I have seen it happen. There is a strong ideological connection with terror groups.

“There will still be individuals who start in HuT and go over to fight in Afghanistan and become terrorists.

‘‘HuT strongly supports the insurgency and the Taliban’s ideology.”

The former recruitment boss claims to have been beaten up, threatened and intimidated by members of HuT since leaving the group – which supports the introduction of harsh Shariah law in Britain and previously called for a holy war against Jews in Israel.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which translates as ‘party of liberation’, also believe that British Muslims must fight integration in society and aims to create a global Islamic superstate.

The group has been banned in Germany for its anti-semitic views, and the Conservatives have promised to outlaw the party if elected next year.

Khalid Mahmood, Muslim Labour MP for Perry Barr, said: “These boys going over to fight in Afghanistan is no real surprise to me. Groups like HuT have been operating like this for quite some time, recruiting people into the nexus of terrorism.

“We need greater controls on groups like HuT. Over the past decade it has changed its website and PR and the government hasn’t banned it but we need to keep a very close eye on the group.

“Because we respect human rights and civil liberties, HuT has been allowed to continue but these people do not respect those things. They are turning our youngsters into killers, either at home or overseas.

‘‘They need to be held accountable.”

Hizb ut-Tahrir held a summer conference in Birmingham, with pictures on its official website showing primary schoolchildren taking the microphone to speak to a crowd of hundreds.

Our source said that he joined HuT at the age of just 15.

“I had college lecturers who came to my school and addressed our class, they spoke about the HuT ideology,” he said.

“They made you feel like an outsider in Britain and told you that you were part of a global brotherhood of Muslims who could rule themselves according to the Quran.

‘‘It was a very attractive message for young people like me who hadn’t seen a lot of life and were vulnerable to indoctrination.

“The first roadshow I attended was in Birmingham in the mid-90s. They picked at any issue they could find to separate Muslims from British society.

“These weren’t just some guys, they were doctors, lawyers, respected people who you could look up to.”

As he progressed through the ranks of HuT, the future head of recruitment for Midlands universities says he was taught how to indoctrinate youngsters by destroying their normal values and promoting Islamic extremist views.

“Once that has been done you start to talk about homosexuality being unacceptable, imposing Shariah law, fighting for Islamic freedom in Kashmir and destroying Israel,” he said.

“I used to give Friday sermons at universities in Birmingham and recruit new members from there. The whole point was that individuals would influence other individuals and the whole thing would snowball.

“While I was looking after the Midland universities we brought in hundreds of members. They went out into society to become doctors, accountants, teachers and to pass on the HuT ideology where they could.”

But a spokesman for HuT – whose media relations are managed by Imran Waheed, a former NHS psychiatrist at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital – dismissed allegations of violence and extremism as “nonsense”.

“It is well-known that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political movement which only utilises intellectual and political means in its work,” he said.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir does not and has never engaged in violence or intimidation and is not linked to any other group.”

Fears over Islamic students becoming involved in terror attacks were raised in April when ten Pakistani students accused of being members of Al Qaeda were arrested in Manchester and Liverpool, accused of plotting an Easter bombing campaign.

Charges against the group were dropped, though eight were later deported as a threat to national security.

HuT has effectively been banned from speaking at UK universities by the National Union of Students’ “no platform” policy, which means it cannot take part in official debates.

But in May 2008 John Holmwood, a professor from Birmingham University’s sociology department, shared a stage with a Hizb ut-Tahrir member in a secularism debate that was advertised to students as a HuT event.

Researcher Hannah Stuart, from think tank The Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “In its own words, HuT tells its members to ‘keep your ideology in your heart’.

“They are just about avoiding being banned as an extremist group but events like the one in 2008 give them legitimacy. They need to be stopped.”

A spokesman for the University of Birmingham said that the threat of extremism was taken “very seriously” and that any incidents were dealt with at senior levels within the university.

The Home Office maintains a list of “proscribed” extremist groups which are banned in the UK but HuT is not among those organisations.

A spokeswoman said: “Decisions on proscription must be based on evidence that a group is concerned in terrorism.

‘‘Hizb ut-Tahrir is an organisation of concern and is kept under continuous review.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said this week that the Conservatives could outlaw organisations like HuT – and that extremist groups would not be able to hide behind “a veil of moderation”.

A MIDLAND hospital which treats hero soldiers wounded in Afghanistan has refused a donation from the British National Party.

Bosses at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham turned down money from the far right party after its members made the collection, claiming it would be donated to build a burns unit for injured squaddies.

The BNP, whose leader Nick Griffin is MEP for the North West, say they were selling stickers calling for troops to withdraw from Afghanistan in a bid “to help our brave and wounded soldiers”.

But a spokesman for Selly Oak Hospital, which houses the army’s Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, said: “The British National Party is selling merchandise with the promise of donating the proceeds to the Selly Oak Hospital burns unit.

“Neither the University Hospitals of Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust nor its official charity, UHB Charities, have been contacted by the BNP about this venture, and the Trust does not accept money from any political party,” said the spokesman.

Labour MP for the area Dr Lynne Jones said: “I think the BNP is using the good name of the hospital to further its distasteful views.”

In October the hospital was at the centre of a political storm when Mr Griffin claimed injured soldiers on Selly Oak’s wards had to pay to watch television.

Griffin was attempting to justify his wearing of a poppy on a televised debate against the wishes of the Royal British Legion.

He said he would remove the poppy if the Legion would put pressure on the Government to stop “charging young British soldiers with no legs in Selly Oak Hospital” to watch TV.

His claims were described as “absolute rubbish” by an Army spokesman who stressed military patients had free access to internet, television and phones.

Last night, John Walker, the BNP’s spokesman, said the party was disappointed by the hospital’s decision not to accept their donation.

“I am sure that it’s because it’s the BNP that they are doing this,” he claimed.

“We have as much right to campaign on soldiers and these issues as any other party.

“If Selly Oak won’t take the money, we will find a soldiers’ charity that will.”

Earlier this year, a group of senior military commanders attacked the BNP for hijacking the sacrifices of soldiers in order to gain votes. After the BNP used images of Winston Churchill to fight their European election campaign, former heads of the British Army General Sir Mike Jackson and General Sir Richard Dannatt wrote an open letter saying the party was “fundamentally at odds” with the values of the British military.

“We call on all those who seek to hijack the good name of Britain’s military for their own advantage to cease and desist,” the generals said.

“The values of these extremists – many of whom are essentially racist – are fundamentally at odds with the values of the modern British military, such as tolerance and fairness.”

Griffin, who was convicted of inciting racial hatred in 1998 for publishing material appearing to deny the holocaust, responded by comparing the generals to Nazi war criminals.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Just shows you what complete and utter twats are running our essential services. If they refuse money to treat our soldiers, what else will be decided? ir frightens mwe to think just how these idiots will determine medical care.

This section is in defence of the British Army; an army for which the Government does not care. While the British Army show courage, conviction, strength, and duty (to their comrades and regiments) in the field of ENFORCED combat for modern “democratic” imperialism, M.P.s have again proved their cowardice, acquittal, weakness, and treason in the field of their self-enriching genocide and war-crimes.

This website is neither pacifist nor is it gung-ho: we believe primarily in the natural virtue of DEFENCE. Only in defence can war be justified.

Here we see much evidence of treason, cowardice, imperialism, and down-right PATHETIC play from M.P.s who send the innocents out to war but keep their guilty clique close and safe at home like a shyster keeps close to his chest the pack of marked cards.